Remember kids, LLM responses aren't deterministic, even with temperature=0

Happy spring equinox or something!

PancakesCon & @comfyconau.bsky.social are THIS SUNDAY, September 21st. Here are some final notes on how to make the most of virtual conferences and where to find useful information! pancakescon.com/2025/09/17/f...

#uspol Welp, guess the trump regime is officially fascist now: www.nzherald.co.nz/world/trump-...

… *sigh*

This might be my husband’s most favorite thing I’ve ever drawn.

Why did apple go from macos/ios 15/18 to 26 again? Is this more dumb northern hemisphereian bullshit?

Here's the latest variant picture for New Zealand, to the end of August. NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" has continued to dominate, but fell back to finish at 49%. It looks under serious threat from JN.1.* +DeFLuQE, which rebounded to 34%. #COVID19 #SARSCoV2 #NZ #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus #DeFLuQE 🧵

For anyone shopping for video cards in NZ, here's a rough cost/cost per frame spreadsheet, using info from @hardwareunboxed.bsky.social 's video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpsK... (Using just PBtech lowest pricing atm). Looks like the AMD RX 9060XT 16GB is the best value, don't buy 8GB vram cards!)

NGC 6752! en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_6752

Sup Saturn

ugh it's only 10am and I already just want to go lay down on the floor and stare at the ceiling

*monday morning, gets in office. Computers not working properly* ah yes one of those weeks is it

TIL there is a squished star! en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altair

Remember when they told us they had accidentally hired *too many* nurses and literally EVERYONE went "That can't be right, you were just massively understaffed?!" #NZPol

Quasar 🌌 New art for the #EF29 art show!

Apparently, the scene got upgraded. www.reddit.com/r/dragoncon/...

OK which one of you did this -.-

Oops found another song to loop all day www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VlN...

Oh hey the "your employer can't stop you talking about how much they pay you" legislation has been passed into law: bills.parliament.nz/v/6/602a4ff6...

It feels like we're still mostly in the basic "food safety" hygiene era of AppSec. 🫣 There's lots that go into making Apps more secure, but, there's still lots of basics to be done. Like simple checks to make sure the chicken has been properly stored, cleaned & cooked, before being served. 🤔

Oop small #eqnz?

bsky discovers livecoding/algorave wonder what's gonna happen when they learn this has a multi-decade history

Google, when I put a youtube video on loop JUST LEAVE IT ON LOOP FOREVER, don't randomly turn loop off! Fucking useless/evil software developers.

I think it says a lot about NZ's Green Party being environment/ecosystem/science based rather than some of the cultural trends in other countries, that the Green Party had the fewest voters who had never had a covid vaccination 0.34%. 32.5% of NZ First voters say they never had a covid vaccination.

Turns out indulging swivel eyed bigots who were convinced the maaries were going to put microchips in the water for cheap political gain was *incredibly* politically irresponsible. Who could have predicted? (answering my own qn; with exceptions including present company, *not* the press gallery)

www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa... Ahhhhh "we have tried nothing and we are all out of ideas" "Blair Dravitsky expected his school's attendance numbers to take a hit, with kids taking longer to recover from sickness than in previous years." GEE I WONDER WHY

The fact that the thing we're calling artificial intelligence *can't do math* and yet we're jamming it into programs that successfully *have done math* for decades, then warning people against using the AI to do math, seems like an excellent summary of where we are.

Oh it's hard snowing!

It’s wild that the most unrealistic part of Terminator 2 is now the idea of a tech founder being told their creation will enslave humanity and they decide to destroy their product & company.

Cool, thanks a lot HP.

Here's the latest variant picture for New Zealand, to early August. Growth of the NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" variant might have peaked; it fell slightly to finish at 71% frequency. XFG.* "Stratus" is the likely next challenger, but was roughly flat at 8%. #COVID19 #NZ #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus #XFG #Stratus 🧵

Funny how when it comes to AI people are all "adapt or be left behind" but when it comes to remote work the same people insist that things must go back to how they were at all cost.

I am talking at this- about the NZ acute covid data handling I was doing 2020-2023 and the weirdness (to me) and wider context of what was an unpaid lunchtimes and evening project winding up with things like me, as a respectful epistemical trespasser, being name-checked in cabinet briefing papers.

Is the government saying teachers earn 147k per annum? Because... that is not true

"They go to SEX CLUBS and pretend to be DOGS!" Yeah well you go to church every Sunday and pretend to be a good person

oop #eqnz?

Wave 1 tickets, merch, and event tix are up, y'all: kawaiicon.org Don't worry, there will be another wave next week if you miss out today! We will announce the day/time once we recover from the gauntlet of con things this week :D

Pity the Luxon Gov pretends COVID wasn’t really important & never bothered to introduce basic ventilation & filtering standards for schools. Then again, based on 8% David’s abhorrent school “lunch” debacle, it’s clear that the health & wellbeing of our children doesn’t matter at all to them. #nzpol

hmm, is there a difference between a Computer Toucher and a Computer Booper? And if so what?

magazine screenshot (1993) archive.org/details/MSXF...

A classic..

Here's the latest variant picture for New Zealand, to late July. Growth of the NB.1.8.1 "Nimbus" variant resumed, and it climbed to 78% frequency. XFG.* "Stratus" grew slightly to finish at 11%. #COVID19 #NZ #NB_1_8_1 #Nimbus #XFG #Stratus 🧵

In a significant escalation, there are now reports that Steam is only allowed to process Paypal transactions if the currency is EUR/USD/GBP/CAD/JPY/AUD, whether players are trying to purchase adult games or not!

Welp, looks like covid is still doing the rounds in Wellington and the XFG variant is slowly picking up steam. poops.nz

We live in a strange world where stories about vehicles banging into cycle lane kerbing is framed as a pain in the ass for motorists, rather than a full-on vindication of efforts to protect cyclists from bad drivers.